I would like to present the case that God exists and can be known to exist through logic and reason. I will be presenting a number of arguments for God's existence in this debate and wish to show that there are much better arguments for than against the existence of God, but first I wish to present my first argument which is known as the kalam cosmological argument for God's existence and will then the leave the challenge open to people to refute my argument and present some other cases for denying that God exists.

The Kalam cosmological argument is a deductive argument where if the first two premises are true the conclusion necessarily follows, the argument goes like this:

1.Everything that begins to exist has a cause

2.The universe began to exist

3.Therefore the universe has a cause

Now let us analyse and examine whether these premises are true starting with the first premise, everything begins to exist has a cause, is this the case?

Premise One
Now to me it seems very rational to believe the first premise and illogical if you deny it, for if you deny it then you are saying that things can just pop into being without a cause. This kind of thinking is worst than believing in the magic of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat because at least in this case we have a hat and a magician, denying the first premise then means that for you it isn"t illogical to think rabbits can put into existence, thus making it more of stretch than believing in magic. From nothing, nothing comes, you cannot get something from nothing and how can you get something when there isn"t anything? Looking at it from a mathematical perspective 0 + 0 + 0" will never give you one. Also if it is the case that things can just come into being from nothing then why don"t we see this happening all the time? Why can"t computers. horses, bread and milk pop into the middle of your living room? Thus, It is safe to say that scientific evidence, personal experience and logic confirm the first premise.
Now let us evaluate the second premise and see whether this is true, did the universe begin to exist?

Premise Two
Atheists have typically said that the universe has always existed and is eternal trying to avoid the need to bring God into the equation, "The universe is just there. And that"s all." (Bertrand Russell). First let us consider the second law of thermodynamics, this informs us that the universe is running out of usable energy, and that"s the point, for if the universe had been here forever then it would have run out of usable energy by now, the second law therefore points us towards a universe that had a definite beginning. This is further confirmed by a series of remarkable scientific discoveries. In 1915, Albert Einstein presented his General Theory of Relativity. This allowed us, for the first time, to talk meaningfully about the past history of the universe. Next, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lema"tre, each working with Einstein's equations, predicted that the universe is expanding. Then, in 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the redshift in light from distant galaxies. This empirical evidence confirmed not only that the universe is expanding, but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past. It was a monumental discovery almost beyond comprehension. However, not everyone is fond of a finite universe" So, it wasn't long before alternative models popped into existence. But, one by one, these models failed to stand the test of time. More recently, three leading cosmologists Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin proved that "any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past, but must have an absolute beginning." This even applies to the multiverse, if there is such a thing. This means that scientists "can no longer hide behind a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning." (Alexander Vilenkin).

Premise two can also be confirmed to be true from coming to some rational conclusions on the idea of infinite in the real world. If the universe was always there and eternal then this means that it is also infinite, but the question is can you have an actual infinite in the real world, do they exist. Admittedly of course infinites do exist in the realm of mathematics, but this isn"t physical reality what I am referring to is whether you can have a quantifiable infinite in the real world. I would argue that it is absurd to believe you can and that it gets you into real logical problems, for example; if I had an infinite amount of balls in this room and I took five away how many would I have left? Some may say well you have an infinite amount still left or you have infinity minus five, but this is absurd because in reality if I take five balls away I should have literally five less than before if not then it makes no sense and thus leads to absurdities. Rather infinite is never actualised, but it can be a potential. For example; If I had four bananas and added one to it I have five and then add 100 to it I have 105 then add 1 billion then 1 trillion and so on the number would always be going higher and it would be heading towards infinity, but still always be finite because you can always add one more banana even if you have a massive number it can never reach infinity, so it makes no sense to think that this can exist in the real world which means that the universe can not be eternal or infinite, but must have had a definite beginning in the finite past. As philosopher David Hilbert asserted; "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought...the role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea." Consequently we can confirm the truth of premise two.

Premise Three
Due to the fact that the first two premises are true then the third necessarily follows that the universe has a cause, but what could this cause be what makes sense of this cause?

The Cause of the universe
From conceptual analysis of this cause we come to some startling conclusions:

1. This cause must be One - Based on the philosophical principle of occam"s razor, which posits that we don"t multiply entities beyond necessity and that the simplest, yet most comprehensive explanation, answering the most questions is the best explanation. Thus we conclude that this cause must be One.

2. This cause must be uncaused/eternal - This is because of the absurdity of the infinite regress of events that it would lead to if it wasn"t uncaused.

3. This cause must be Powerful - This is because this cause created the whole universe and all that is around us from the planets, to galaxies and so on.

4. This cause must be all-knowing - This is because this cause created the universe with physical laws and a lawgiver implies knowledge or an intelligence.

5. This cause must be transcendent - This means that the cause of the universe must exist outside of and apart from the universe. This is obvious as the creator of something is not going to be a part of what it creates.

6. This cause must be immaterial - This is clear because since the cause exists apart from the universe it must be non-physical or immaterial. Also a cause is not going to be like its creation/effect, for if you create a house you are not going to be a part of it you can"t become a brick, rather you are outside of it. The cause/creator of matter is not going to be made up of matter.

7. This cause must have a will and therefore be personal - This is a significant conclusion to come to, but how else can an eternal cause bring into existence the finite universe without choosing to bring it into existence, choice indicates a will and a will indicates a personality.

Consequently we have concluded the traditional view on God. That a transcendental, immaterial and uncaused being exists just using conceptual analysis, logical and reason. So we can say that in fact is is quite reasonable to believe that God exists.

Welcome to another God debate, so let's review some things that we need to be aware of.

The resolution at hand is "God exists"

The resolution is not "God possibly exists" or "God could exist"

Both the prior resolutions are semantics. Anything could possibility exist in some extent. We are discussing the topic "God exists". I want to make 100 percent clear that this is a positive claim and my adversary has the BOP to demonstrate how and why God does exist. If he is not able to do so, he looses this debate. It is my job to provide reasonable doubt and or show there is no need for a God. If I am able to do this, the resolution is negated.

I am not going to respond directly to my adversary in the first round, but our arguments will cross. These are not refutations but merely contentions. They just bear some of the same points.

No need for a God

Most Christians, Deist, and Theist like to assume we need a God in order to explain how and why the universe began. This is an outdated belief that is no longer needed with modern science. When we review the need for a God we often see it in most pagan cultures. Anything from Zeus, Christ, or even Odin. There are Gods that rule over men. This was the most rational way in ancient cultures to explain how and why the earth existed. You can see this all through ancient cultures. It dates all the way back to Mesopotamia, Greece, and even Rome. There was only speculation back in this time period. There was no way to test or observe how and why the universe was created. Now we know everything began from the big bang.

We know this because of multiple reasons. The first reason we know the Big Bang occurred and the only reason I need to focus on at the moment is Cosmic Background radiation. Other wise known as CMBR. This was first discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965, the irony of it was that it actually was an accident. [1]

"The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place and that as it expands, the gas within it cools. Thus the universe should be filled with radiation that is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background", or CMB."[1]

This is what Penzias and Wilson accidentally observed and what at some point will no longer be observable. Due to the rate of expansion in the universe, thousands of years from now there will be no evidence of this whatsoever. Now that we can acknowledge the big bang occurred, the next most logical question is what caused the big bang? The theist are really lazy here and just say "God".

There is a fundamental problem with this argument. The major flaw is that any variable can replace God and have the same evidence. You can replace God with (x), and say the flying cookie monster made the Universe. I could prove this argument with the same logical process that theist use to prove a God. The universe needs a cause, that cause is the cookie monster. There is no evidence to support this and any theory will can bear the same results and follow the same line of logic. Most of these arguments are modeled after Aristotle Prime mover argument.

"Our present position, then, is this: We have argued that there always was motion and always will be motion throughout all time, and we have explained what is the first principle of this eternal motion: we have explained further which is the primary motion and which is the only motion that can be eternal: and we have pronounced the first movement [or: â€œPrime Moverâ€"] to be unmoved."[2]

This is often referred to as the KCA In modern terms. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. This argument usually has 3 or 4 premises and goes something like this

Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause.The universe exists and began to exist.The universe must have a cause.The cause of the universe is God.

There are a few fundamental flaws in this argument. The first being is that even we acknowledge that the everything has a first cause, we do not know that first cause is God. It would also start a paradox. Who created God etc.

So if God did not create the universe whom or what did?

The answer is verily simple. The universe caused itself. You know the irony of this statement? Galaxies have a high possibility of "popping" into existence or causing themselves. We just can not see it. We only know about the observable universe, and what we can see. Stephen Hawking says this

"At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang. "[3]

Another way to say this is Spontaneous Creation, this is also addressed in Hawkings book "A Grand Design".

Hawking goes on to say this

" The universe began with the Big Bang, which simply followed the inevitable law of physics," Hawking writes. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.The universe didn't need a God to begin; it was quite capable of launching its existence on its own"[4]

Laws that existed prior to the big bang had no observable consequences so they are taken out of the theory itself[3]. The next thing I want to address is how could a galaxy or universe actually cause itself to exist? For that matter how can anything cause itself to exist? The first thing we have to look at is this empirical evidence. Has something came from nothing before?

Lets ask Nobel Prize Winner David Gross. I am posting a video above for reference of this argument, see[7]. The basic premise of this argument is that quantum fluctuations can produce energy and matter. So on extremely small scales nothing is a bubbling, boiling, brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence in a time scale so short you can't see them. This youtube video demonstrates this as a projection. This depiction won the Nobel Prize, and shows that in the empty space in between the quarks of an atom, particles are spawning in and out of existence.

So to answer the question can something come from nothing? The answer is yes, it does it all the time. Now can a universe come from nothing? To answer this question we have to address what type of universe that we live in.

We can live in an open , flat , or closed universe. This is also addressed with curvature. The universe can be Positive, Negative, or Flat.

All three geometries are classes of what is called Riemannian geometry, based on three possible states for parallel lines

" Recent measurements (c. 2001) by a number of ground-based and balloon-based experiments, including MAT/TOCO, Boomerang, Maxima, and DASI, have shown that the brightest spots are about 1 degree across. Thus the universe was known to be flat to within about 15% accuracy prior to the WMAP results. WMAP has confirmed this result with very high accuracy and precision. We now know (as of 2013) that the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error. This suggests that the Universe is infinite in extent; however, since the Universe has a finite age, we can only observe a finite volume of the Universe. All we can truly conclude is that the Universe is much larger than the volume we can directly observe."[6]

The beautiful thing about this is that a flat universe is the only possibly universe that yields total energy 0. This is the only possible universe that could result in spontaneous causation, which in turn made the universe cause itself. The universe operates under balance. 0 is usually a mathematically beautiful number, a flat universe yields this result and balances itself. This universe can and does give rise to quantum fluctuations which happen on a day to day basis. We also this see from Hawkings argument about singularity and density. The big bang is not held to anything thing that happened before it and actually caused itself.

Conclusion

This is mainly an appeal to Occams Razor. If we have a working model that explains itself and that can be verified with factual evidence, why insert (x) into the argument. In this case (x) Is God. Remember any variable can be placed here and have the same result. There is virtually no need for a God in modern science.

Pro has an impossible resolution. He wants to prove God exists. There is no evidence to prove there is a God, he will not meet this BOP. There is circumstantial evidence that could prove a God could exist, but then again anything could exist. The case for a God possibly existing is far out weighed, by the cases of modern science. There is virtually no need for a God anymore, nor is there any evidence to support one

Well I have to say that this was exactly what I expected, the pasting of previous arguments from previous debates, but right from the off this hasn't done you any favours whatsoever.

First you start off with this "resolution at hand" and say that "we are discussing the topic God exists", well no we are not, you have debated this before Mikal, but this is not my debate if you were attentive to the title of the debate, we are discussing the question "Does God Exist?" there are no positive claims there, so all of this was completely irrelevant to this debate. You continue by saying I have to prove God exists if not I lose, well not in this debate, rather I am going to suggest that it is more reasonable to believe in God's existence than it isn't, as I said in my prologue to my round one argument I "wish to show that there are much better arguments for than against the existence of God."

Secondly you bring these assumptions that in fact people believed in God's because this was the best reason at that time to explain how and why earth existed, well I would like to see some evidence please, I would argue there are many different reasons why they may have believed in God's and why people still believe in God today and yes that maybe one of them, but really this point is based on no evidence and pure assumption.

Thirdly you brought this typical atheist argument that Bertrand Russell was most famous for, the idea that we could say as you put it "the flying cookie monster" exists and caused the universe and can be proved using the same logical argument as a theist does for God, well okay then don't just say it do it, that is utter rubbish there is nothing logical with believing in a cookie monster whatsoever in fact quite the opposite. You see what you and the atheists fail to take into account here is that when you say, well the flying cookie monster caused the universe and you cannot disprove it just like you can't with God, you fail to understand that we don't disbelieve in the flying cookie monster due to the absence of evidence of it existing, we disbelieve in it because of having good evidence and reasons for it not existing, we have good reasons and evidence to suggest that you cannot have a flying cookie in space or a cookie that has such a capacity to do such things, it is also just ridiculous and irrational, so you see absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but we don't believe in santa, the cookie monster, or the tooth fairy, because we have good evidence that they don't exist, we have contrary evidence, such evidence that I am failing to see against the existence of God.

Fourthly you have furthered proved you are not very learned in such philosophical arguments such as the KCA because you first say it is flawed because "even if we acknowledge that everything has a first cause we do not know that first cause is God...who created God?" Well please be attentive to the argument, for it states - "Everything that BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause" For when you say, well who created God, that means that you"re reduced to thinking about created gods which none of us even believes. Because the God who created the universe was not created He is eternal this is the fundamental distinction between God and the universe it came to exist, but He did not. So when you say who created God you"re not referring to a God that anyone even believes in. You see if something exists eternally it doesn't need a cause and this is typically what atheists of the past tried to do in regards to the universe, claiming it to be eternal in order to avoid the need of a cause. So God a timeless being beyond space and time not having a beginning is therefore the first and only uncaused cause, so this question is really "what is the cause of the uncaused cause?" which is like asking "what is the name of the married bachelors wife?" it is self refuting. Furthermore this question will only lead to an infinite regress for if you say who created God, then who created he who created God and who created he, who created he, who created God and this would go on forever meaning that in fact the universe would never come into existence because if you have creators creator at infinitum then they will never get to the creation of the universe itself.

Fifthly I think you really confuse yourself when you talk about the universe or things can pop into existence from nothing or they create themselves, they are two completely different things, so first I want to address the idea that things can create themselves or as you put it "the universe created itself." I have to say out of all the things I read in your argument this has to be undoubtedly the most absurd and most ridiculous. You see in order for something to create itself it would have to exist and not exist at the same time, because it would have to exist in order to create itself, but it still doesn't even exist yet, so this is a nonsensical self refuting argument.

Now can something come from nothing, you claim it can and have brought really shocking evidence to suggest this I will analyse this claim and then show you how that really makes no sense at all. Firstly you decided to present the case that things can come from nothing (or more specifically the universe) by quoting Stephen Hawking and one of his latest works "A Grand Design". Now if you actually read this book then you would realise something quite significant in regards to this "nothing" that Stephen Hawking is referring to and I am going to quote his book review by atheists on the "website common sense atheism" - "Moreover, the book does not even argue that the universe created itself from nothing, as nothing is usually conceived. Instead, Hawking argues that the universe will create itself from the pre-existing vacuum energy of "empty space," which, is not really empty." [1] "For "nothing" in their (Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow - the co writer) vocabulary does not have the traditional meaning "non-being" but rather means "the quantum vacuum." [2] So the claim that things can come from nothing using this as evidence is ridiculous as atheists such as Hawking have redefined nothing from its traditional sense and changed it to quantum vacuum, a sea of fluctuating energy that even has a physical structure! So when you go on to talk about David Gross and virtual particles you have the exact same problem, really this kind of claim in fact seems to represent a deliberate abuse of science, the theories in question have to do with particles or as a fluctuation of the energy contained in the vacuum. The vacuum in modern physics is not what is generally understood as vacuum, namely nothing, rather in physics the vacuum is a see of fluctuating energy, governed by physical laws and having a physical structure. To say that due to this we can now say that something can come from nothing is a complete distortion of those theories and as the professor of history and philosopher Christopher Ray noted that; "Hence, even in a true vacuum, matter may appear briefly. Even if the matter fields involved in the vacuum state are rather peculiar and certainly not observable in the sense that "real" particles are, it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void." Consequently this doesn't provide us with any kind of reasons to believe the something can come from nothing. If things can come from nothing then why don't we see this happening all the time Why can"t computers. horses, bread and milk pop into the middle of your living room? Why is it only a universes that can come from nothing, what makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can"t be anything about nothingness that favours universes for nothingness has no properties, nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained, why can"t this be seen or observed? The fact that it never has seemingly answers the question. This idea is completely irrational and illogical it is so absurd that even the atheist physicist Doctor Peter Slezek admitted, "Only in academics could people be so ridiculous. Such claims, if made seriously outside of the seminar room would be evidence of clinical derangement." Furthermore science cannot even address the idea of nothing or non-being because science is restricted to problems that only observations can solve. The philosopher of science Elliot Sober verifies this limitation of science in his essay Empiricism, he writes; "At any moment scientists are limited by the observations they have at hand...the limitation is that science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that observations can solve."

So having refuted your main claim, namely that things can come from nothing the rest of your argument becomes a red herring, it becomes totally irrelevant and is just all academia not answering the question at hand and the same goes with you conclusion using the philosophical principle of Occam's razor because you have failed to show that "we have a working model that explains itself" in the first place. Unfortunately due to me not having enough characters left I cannot present another case for God, but not to worry because my first argument still stands up to the test, but why?

Well nothing you have said disproves the first premise, what you have said proves the second, the third necessarily follows and God makes the most sense of this cause of the universe, thus I have shown that it makes more sense to believe in God than to deny Him and that the arguments for are much better than those against God's existence.

" First you start off with this "resolution at hand" and say that "we are discussing the topic God exists", well no we are not, you have debated this before Mikal, but this is not my debate if you were attentive to the title of the debate, we are discussing the question "Does God Exist?"

I am kind of lost as to where to begin to respond. First we are discussing

"God exists"

And the resolution is a positive claim in favor of that. He then says If I were attentive to the title of the debate, which is the resolution it says

"Does God exist"

That is a question and is asking does God exist? My adversary is taking pro on this stance and due to that he is affirming the resolution. He is arguing for the fact that God does exist. If this is not blatantly obvious by the resolution review his opening statements.

"I would like to present the case that God exists"

So the resolution is in fact "God exists" or "whether or not God exists". No matter how we decide to word the resolution, he still has to present concrete evidence in order to support it. When you are making the claim that God exists it is still your BOP to provide the evidence for it. The wording of the resolution does not change the fact that viable evidence must be presented. Even if the resolution is "God probably exists" , there still has to be evidence. Again this is not the resolution, the resolution is "God exists". It is my adversaries job to prove this.

Rebuttal 1

Ancient Beliefs

" Secondly you bring these assumptions that in fact people believed in God's because this was the best reason at that time to explain how and why earth existed, well I would like to see some evidence please, I would argue there are many different reasons why they may have believed in God's and why people still believe in God today and yes that maybe one of them, but really this point is based on no evidence and pure assumption. "

This is a logical process and the statement is irrefutable. The evidence is in the fact that they worshiped Gods and were less advanced. I mean we are talking about times where fire and the wheel were invited. When you compare that with modern science and the fact we can go into space and visit other planets, the two are on different levels. So you ask for evidence, the evidence is that in a nutshell. They had no way to see CMBR or know how the universe existed. As society became more advanced and developed new technology, many different things were discovered. Of course ancient cultures believed in God because that was the only explanation they had for the universe and their surroundings. They worshiped, the Sun, The Moon, The Stars and assigned deities to them because they were in utter amazement. Science can explain what these things are and why there is no God or Multiple Gods responsible for creating them.

Absence of Evidence is Evidence of absence.

Let me break this down logically. The issue I brought up is anyone could create the universe. This is often brought up with Russel's Teapot as my adversary mentioned. This essentially breaks down like this.

Pretend there is a trial and it involves a murder

The murderer killed the person in question and gets off due to lack of evidence.

Now if we say that person is innocent, does that make it the truth? In a way yes, due to the evidence that is available at the time we believe he is innocent. It does not change this objectively, when you look at this from the outside the person will always be objectively guilty. He committed the murder, that is a fact even though there is evidence that is absent. That is the logic my adversary is trying to prove God with. It would go into his favor except for some fatal flaws within the deduction.

The first being that lack of evidence for a God goes far beyond the scope of a murder. Could there be a possibility that evidence will arise that proves there is a God. Sure there could be, and at that point science will acknowledge this, adapt, and keep moving on. The issue being there has never been any conclusive evidence for the existence of a God and we can clearly see most of the facts that are available in the present time. My adversary is arguing for evidence that has never been found in this stance

Again Pretend this is a trial, just like the murder example

My adversary is the prosecutor and in order for him to show that God exists, he must bring forth evidence to support his claim. The trial is today and the voters are the jury. If he argues for evidence that has not yet been found or probably will never be found, this will not hold up in the court. Just saying there is a possibility evidence could exist, is not an argument. It is hope and faith, and that is the very essence of religion itself.

Who created God

My adversary tries to call me out on the KCA with a failure in logic. He says

"Everything that began to exist must have a cause"

He then goes on to say that God was never created. This is a paradox in which I explained in the previous round. When you say something is the prime mover or first cause, this can go back ad infintum. Even if there was a God, how do we know that he was not created? Even if we acknowledge the fact that a God exists, he very well could have been created. This is outside of what we can observe and is based strictly in guess work. My adversary is just assuming God is the Prime Mover. For him to show this he must show that a God is required in order to explain how the universe began. If there is no need for a God, then there is no evidence or logic to arrive at this conclusion from. He must show something similar to this

pretend > are moments in timex is the big bangand y is the present.

Considering every moment in time is preceded by another moment it would look something like this

x > > > > > > > y

for my adversary to show that God is eternal and actual exists he must provide evidence to support this

God > > > > > x > > > > > Y

He has to go outside of what is observable and show that a God exists and must exist. He has failed to do this.

Something from nothing

I think my adversary is either lost or just did not bother to actually research this topic at all. He says for something to create itself it must exist first. This is from a fundamental failure to understand the topic at hand. Can something create itself? Yes it can, how does matter and atoms create themselves?

My adversary takes the quote I used way out of context. It is basically saying a universe could create itself from nothing, because gravity is an acting force and due to the proper conditions with gravity, the universe could create itself.

This argument literally is saying the same thing he tries to call me out on. When I mean nothing, the type of nothing is not a factor. I simply said the universe created itself. Which is a fact. Anything prior to the big bang could have and possibly did operate under different laws. This is outside of what is observable. The fact is the universe created itself, and "popped" or ironically "banged" into existence.

If you read the argument and the source, the universe "banging" requires gravity. Hawking also acknowledges this and specifically notes that the law of gravity is responsible for the universe creating itself. Trying to play semantics with "nothing" is a red herring in itself and does not address the point at hand.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,â€" Hawking writes. â€œIt is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.""[1]

To first accept the notion that the universe can create itself , you have to accept something can come from nothing. Going to give a brief run down on this in detail and explain the vacuum he is talking about in further detail and in context.

First lets look at the equation E = MC squared

If you envision trying to trap a particle into a smaller and smaller volume, you find that the confinement energy becomes so great that the system is unstable with respect to pair production of various particle-antiparticle pairs such as electrons and positrons. If you put enough energy into a system, it can produce particle-antiparticle pairs in accordance with the Einstein Theory that is listed above. [2]

So essentially particle-antiparticle pairs can be created from "nothing", that is from no particles to two particles, but energy must be provided, so these particles can be viewed as having been created from the energy. And that required energy is not "nothing", so a vacuum that produced particles would nevertheless require available energy to convert into the particles. For the universe to create itself that energy is directly related to gravity which is what I noted last round.

Next we need to look at how a flat universe plays a part in this and what Gravitational Potential energy is. The formula for GPE is (U = - GMm/r. ) Basically Gravitational Constants multiplied by the mass of an attracting body divided by the distance in between their centers.

The nature of gravity and the fact that gravitational potential energy is negative is a key factor in understanding this and one my adversary must fully take the time to understand. As the universe expands the gravitational energy becomes less negative and in the case of our nearly "flat" universe will approach zero. So basically no additional energy compared to the vacuum would be needed and the universe could create itself.

Conclusion

The resolution is "God exists" I have shown the non need for a creator. If I had more character space I would show this in greater detail such as the universe having all possible histories. What I have shown is more than sufficient to negate a resolution based of speculation.

Thank you for your response as once again you have shown me just how strong the Kalam Cosmological argument really is

Okay so you start off then with all the resolution bit, but the point is, is that I have said this debate is "Does God Exist" and as mentioned before my initial argument in round one, I "WISH TO SHOW THAT THERE ARE MUST BETTER ARGUMENTS FOR THAN AGAINST THE EXISTENCE OF GOD" simple as that. So this really responds also to your section on the absence of evidence and your examples you gave in criminology. I am not having to show what you are telling me to show, I am telling you what I am going to try to show, the debate I set-up was made this way clear from the off.

The ancient beliefs, of course I get the logic that you are coming from, but I just think a lot of it is assumption because if it is all true then I guess you have to ask then why do people still believe in God today? Well there are many different reasons why and I think it would have been better to suggest there are trends here, indications there and be more scientific in your approach here, but really this bit is kind of irrelevant anyway.

Now in regards to the KCA, basically you don't fully understand my response to who created God and so ask basically well how do we know God is eternal, aren't you just assuming that God was uncaused. First and foremost the fact that this leads to an infinite regress proves that God could not have been created. This is because if God had a creator, who then must have a creator, who had a creator etc. then we would never get the creation of the universe, so by this logic we wouldn't even be having this debate right now, for creators creating each other at infinitum, would mean we would never get to the creation of the universe in the first place, so it makes no sense to suggest then God was created. Now as I am sure you know space and time came into being due to the big bang and so the cause of this universe must be outside it, beyond space and time, the fact that God is beyond time i.e. timeless, by definition means God is eternal and so is uncaused or without need of one and as mentioned I don't think that atheists generally can have too many issues with the idea of ascribing eternal to something.

Now can the universe come from nothing, or bring it self into existence. You first mentioned that matter and atoms create themselves, but haven't you forgotten the law of conservation of matter, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed? anyway this is not really important because the claim you are making like many atheists that the universe can bring itself into existence from nothing is what should be addressed and of course understanding nothing is vital here because if it isn't nothing that you are referring to and in fact is something means that the universe came into being from something rather than nothing which is totally different obviously. So once again here what you refer to when talking about the theory of relativity and so on, is a complete distortion of the term nothing, which is not the nothing that we understand in the traditional sense, "no-thing" or a "complete absence of anything" so when I state from the KCA that everything that begins to exist has a cause you haven't shown my anything that would make me think otherwise, not a single example has been shown that something can come from nothing - (the complete absence of anything) rather what you present is further proof that something comes from something and from nothing, nothing comes. For if things can come from nothing then why don't we see this happening all the time why can"t computers, horses, bread and milk pop into the middle of your living room? Why is it only a universes that can come from nothing, what makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can"t be anything about nothingness that favours universes for nothingness has no properties, nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained, why can"t this be seen or observed? The fact that it never has seemingly answers the question. This idea is completely irrational and illogical it is so absurd that even the atheist physicist Doctor Peter Slezek admitted, "Only in academics could people be so ridiculous. Such claims, if made seriously outside of the seminar room would be evidence of clinical derangement." Furthermore science cannot even address the idea of nothing or non-being because science is restricted to problems that only observations can solve. The philosopher of science Elliot Sober verifies this limitation of science in his essay Empiricism, he writes; "At any moment scientists are limited by the observations they have at hand...the limitation is that science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that observations can solve." The notion that something can come from nothing is so ridiculous it is self refuting and self contradictory, providing you first understand what is meant by nothing.

Also when you talk about Hawking and the law of gravity allowing for the universe to bring itself into existence then this is again an example of how it didn't come from nothing for where did the law of gravity come from? It did not just appear to be here, rather is makes far more sense to suggest it had a timeless, space less, immaterial, transcendent, uncaused cause, namely God.

So as I guessed prior to the debate your only issue to try to reject the KCA would basically rest on trying to disprove premise one, but as shown what you have presented gives me no reason whatsoever to reject this premise and so of course you accept the next premise that the universe had a beginning the rest necessarily follows then that the best explanation is God and I think that I have shown, as I set out to show, that we have better arguments for than against God's existence.

Conclusion

So to conclude I have to say that although I don't agree with many of your views, I respect you for debating me Mikal and would ask you to be sincere in your search for the truth of our existence and ask myself the exact same thing and wish you all the best in the future. Moreover I ask the people who vote, to vote not for the person they like most, but truly on the arguments that have been presented at hand, be that for or against God's existence.

wa salaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu - (may the peace, blessings and mercy of God be unto you), all of you who has taken the time and interest in reviewing this debate

I am going to finalize this and keep it brief, but at this point I don't feel my adversary has properly refuted my arguments and I don't want to repeat any initial points. Let's just go back over some of his points and break this down.

God Does not solve the problem the KCA Presents.

If God has certain qualities such as being omniscience and possessing omnipotence. God is not "nothing," God is "something." So if the KCA's first premise is correct - that something cannot come from nothing, then what caused God to exist? God is not the solution to the KCA, but merely raises more questions. Even if we pretend that God is the prime mover, Pro would have to show evidence to support this.

To the extent that my argument is wrong - that God is "nothing," then God disproves the KCA Himself. Because if God is "nothing" and God created the Universe, then something did come from "nothing."

Either way - whether you define God as "something" or "nothing," God defeats the KCA's first premise.

Something from nothing

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that a particle and anti-particle can appear in a perfect vacuum. The law of conservation of energy can be violated for very small values of time. My opponent's premise 1 (that everything must have a cause) comes from observations on a non-quantum scale. Of course a horse cannot just pop into being. But the entire field of quantum mechanics is based on the provable premise that the physics that applies to large objects does not apply to very small objects. Therefore, quantum fluctuations could explain what caused the Big Bang. My opponent claims that space is "something," not nothing because it has a physical structure. However, the vacuum is something that is devoid of all matter (i.e. it is "nothing"). Something cannot have a *physical* structure if it is devoid of all matter. Any theoretical structure that we give it for the purposes of quantum mechanics is solely conceptual. A perfect vacuum is "nothing" but can produce particles (i.e. something).[1]

If we go back to GPE and focus on that we can see how something can arise from nothing. As gravity expands the energy becomes negative, since we are in a flat universe or when there is 0 gravity, no energy could be required to make it cause itself. The general expression for gravitational potential energy arises from the law of gravity and is equal to the work done against gravity to bring a mass to a given point in space. Because of the inverse square nature of the gravity force, the force approaches zero for large distances, and it makes sense to choose the zero of gravitational potential energy at an infinite distance away. The gravitational potential energy near a planet is then negative, since gravity does positive work as the mass approaches. This negative potential is indicative of a "bound state", once a mass is near a large body, it is trapped until something can provide enough energy to allow it to escape.

Gravity might also influence the flow of time (depends if an object is moving with respect to the observer's fixed reference frame). But gravity does not determine whether time exists or not. Matter determines whether gravity exists. Matter cannot exist without time. Matter and energy form the existence of space/time. And space and time are linked into one reference frame. So if there was a singularity(which there is, you can check my round to verify it from hawkings) to make the Big Bang, there must have been matter in it. If there was matter in it, then space/time existed. Gravity was the result of all the matter (and energy) inside the singularity, keeping there until the Big Bang. After the explosion and during the expansion period or phase, gravity was not concentrated in the singularity because all the matter and energy was moving outward, making the universe larger. Since motion outward implies the passage of time (first things were small, then larger, then larger still ) that is change. In order there to have been a Big Bang, which was energy and matter moving outward, there must have been matter inside the singularity to create the density and pressure there. If there was matter, there was gravity inside the singularity. That kept the energy and matter inside it.

Conclussion

When we weigh options we see it is more viable to accept the fact that there is no need for a God. In an appeal to Occam's razor, if we already have a working model there is no need to add extra variables that are not necessary.

The resolution at hand is

"God exists"

I have properly refuted all of my adversaries contentions and he has not met his BOP

I would like to thank him for being bold enough to challenge me on this topic. It was good debate.

Well it really wasn't lol, but anyway thanks for debating I have no energy left to explain this KCA issue again because we aren't getting anywhere, but thanks anyway and maybe we can have another debate another time

That was addressed in the prime over argument, but at that point we were lost in a pardox that is the problem the kca brings up. I just wanted to focus more on something from nothing. That disproves the first premise in itself. Then it turned into us debating nothing and semantics

That was addressed in the prime over argument, but at that point we were lost in a pardox that is the problem the kca brings up. I just wanted to focus more on something from nothing. That disproves the first premise in itself. Then it turned into us debating nothing and semantics

Just to mention Mikal it was a good debate and I don't want us to keep going here in the comments, but please, please, please just be sincere and try to understand the KCA, people are not so dum that they will present an argument for God, that in fact the first premise is refuted by God existing the problem was that when you said "God is not "nothing," God is "something." So if the KCA's first premise is correct - that something cannot come from nothing, then what caused God to exist? God is not the solution to the KCA, but merely raises more questions." You have forget that the KCA is not that just something can can't come from nothing it is that whatever BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause. So I then showed you why God could never have been caused and why he must been consider as eternal. God can still be nothing although I disagree with this, because the premise is saying whatever BEGINS TO EXIST, but you never refuted why God cannot have been created etc.